November21, 2016

The Pinewoods Garden Project celebrated weeks of planning and soliciting for donations and partnerships by officially breaking ground and planting with students and volunteers on Monday, November 7th. It was an incredibly special day. Teachers, parents, students, and community partners planted dozens of new plants and taught students in Mrs. Swedish and Mrs. Lucas’s classes about plants, gardening, and the importance of protecting and honoring our environment.

A GIANT THANK YOU to the FGCU students, Eric, Collin, Kadeem, Alex, Anthony, and Bryan, for their hard work, expertise, and for securing the CPK partnership and fundraising $500 for the project as well as for connecting us with our amazing, amazing community partner, Erica Klopf, owner and operator of Florida Edible Landscaping, who donated her time and truck loads of plants, and for building the raised planters and helping pull this project together with Elli, Linda, and Mrs. Swedish! Thank you to FGCU Eagle News and Sebastian Gonzalez for covering this amazing partnership and going over and beyond to do a print and online 1/2 page feature! A GIANT THANK YOU to Mrs. Swedish for her vision, dedication, and passion to ensuring the Pinewoods campus has an expanding outdoor learning and special garden space,the Pinewoods PTO for financially funding part of the project and creating opportunities through theirParent Room Team program to get parents like Elli Triana, Linda Bosway, Tatiana Franklin, Dave Wildermuth, Kristin Teschke, and Jennifer Courtney involved in projects like this. We are so thankful that they helped plan the event, paint tires, secure press, donate soil and other supplies (Dave and Kristin), and mostly volunteer with the children (Tatiana). We also want to thankLowes of Estero for their $50 gift card donation, The Brownie Troop #482 under Katie Varano who planted sunflowers and painted bricks and Girl Scout Troop #100 under Jennifer Brownlee for the rain barrels,and school custodian, Mario Encinosa, whodonated tires that were later painted by Jennifer Courtney. We couldn’t have done any of this without each of you! "Thank you" doesn’t cut it!

Pinewoods: A family of incredible people, doing more, because they are doing it together! Go Eagles!